Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The best time of your life...

Duffy Brown here and my
daughter just turned the big 4-0. We did the dinner out thing and
presents and cupcakes and sang but when we got ready to go home I turned to her
and said... Emily, the forties are best years of your life! I wasn’t just being
supportive because she’s getting older I
meant it.

Here’s the thing

…

When you are in your twenties you’re thrilled your crush finally asked you
out, you have no idea what a 401K is, you got the job of your dreams and a week
later hate it. Every time you open the mail there’s a
wedding/shower/bachelorette invitation or maybe all three and you don’t have a
date and can’t afford a new dress.

Your bestie just broke
up with her guy, you just broke up with your guy, your just married and hate
your in-laws, new apartment, found out your pregnant and thinking what the heck have I done!

The twenties are
indecision, deciding and deciding wrong, or deciding right and wondering is
this all there is for the next ninety years?

Personally I wouldn’t be
twenty again for all the tea in China.

Then
there’s the thirties. Life is more
meaningful, more established, more fulfilling, more stable. You have fewer fights, cry less and make fewer bad decisions. You have less fun because life is more
predictable and less spur-of-the-moment because you have a real job, a house a
car and maybe a kid.

The kid thing is the real
life-changer. You trade independence for craziness and no sleep and the five
minute shower. You have everything you dreamed of those nights coming home from
a bar when no one asked for your number, crying yourself to sleep because you
felt so alone. In fact, you never feel alone and what you once prayed for
sometimes feels like a curse.

something is that you finally feel comfortable in your own skin. You know
who you are and you’re good with it. You’re calmer about challenges and function
better in relationships. You look better than you did when you were twenty
‘cause you got more money to join the gym, buy clothes and the kids are
sleeping through the night.

You’re quicker to say I'm sorry, slower to linger
in spaces that feed you, and generally liberated from 80 percent of the
shoulda-woulda-couldas that dominated your life before. You are who you and
that’s just fine.

So, what do you think? Did I tell Emily the
truth? Are the forties your best years of your life?

22 comments:

My life in a nutshell: When I turned 30 my youngest child was weaned and out of diapers. When I turned 40, my youngest child had his Bar Mitzvah. When I turned 50, I had survived breast cancer, started a business and finally taught my husband the joys of taking vacations. It only gets better from here.

My 50s were the best -- I'd finally met the love of my life, my children were finding their adult paths, and I was writing full time, traveling, and enjoying life like I never had before -- until my husband passed away. Now I'm finding a new life, and while it's not what I had, it's still good. But you nailed it on your advice to your daughter, Duffy. Good post.

When I turned 40 (8 years ago) I finally felt like an ADULT. I am the "baby' in the family, and every one always refused to treat me like an adult. It didn't matter to them that I had completed college, was in a very professional and demanding career, owned my own home, and was very well traveled; I was the baby. When I turned 40 I finally convinced them I was a peer and it kind of stuck.I loved turning 40, that was a great milestone birthday, and soon it will be 50. I have never been stuck on the number. Although I have matured and grown I still feel like that young woman looking to the future. As they say 40 is fabulous